Part 12 (1/2)
”Nope,” repeated Fom, stoutly, ”we're not.”
Mr. Pemberton shook his head helplessly. ”What are you doing?”
”I'm running a drift”--Fom misunderstood the drift of his question--”from the Silver King to the Diamond Heart, and the earth keeps coming down. Then Bep tries to make it harder by grabbing for the tools and--”
”Why don't you timber?” suggested Pemberton, gravely.
”'Cause I don't have to,” answered Fom, quite as seriously.
”Oh, you don't!” Pemberton, a man with no sense of humor, had been unusually expansive; but he shrank angrily into himself now, as though from a cold douche. It took some time for one to get accustomed to Fom's way of instructing authorities upon the subjects which they were supposed to know most about.
”No, that's silly,” remarked Fom, superbly. ”If the ground's sticky enough, and you're not b.u.t.ter-fingered,”--with an insulting glance at Bep,--”you can manage all right.”
”But I'm not b.u.t.ter-fingered and I always timber.” Warren Pemberton was a slow man, but a dogged one; the elusiveness of this pert child irritated him.
”That's 'cause you don't know any better,” came from the expert, who had returned to her task, the excited flourishes of her uplifted legs betraying its difficulties.
”You're a little fool!” declared the superintendent. ”Do you know who I am? My name's Pemberton, and I--”
”Why don't you make your wife leave Crosby alone, then?” demanded Fom, without seeming much impressed.
Warren Pemberton looked down upon her little body with an expression that made Bep wonder why he refrained from stamping upon it.
”You don't think Mrs. Pemberton knows her business, either?” His ruddy, full face looked apoplectic.
”Nope. Sissy says if she was Crosby she'd run away to sea. And she's going to put him up to it, too, if--”
But Bep, frightened by the growing anger in the great man's face, interposed. ”Shall I shut her up for you, Mr. Pemberton?” she asked.
”What--what d' ye say? I wish to G.o.d you would, or that somebody could!”
”Fom,” said Bep, authoritatively, ”shut up!”
Fom jumped to her feet. There was appeal, wrath, rebellion in her crimson face. She opened her lips as if to protest.
”Shut up, Fom,” repeated Bep, distinctly. ”I said _shut up_.”
There came a deadly silence. Pemberton, in the act of stalking ill-temperedly away, turned bewildered to regard the miracle.
”Say,” asked Peter Cody, driven to speech by curiosity. ”Say, Fom, do you let your sister boss you like that? I thought you was twins.”
Fom looked appealingly at Bep. If Bep would but explain the nature of a shut-up--its power of suddenly depriving one of speech; of making one temporarily dumb in the very midst of a sentence, at the bidding of the winner of a wager, whenever, wherever the caprice to collect the debt of honor occurred to her!
But Bep, after accompanying Mr. Pemberton a few steps, striving to untell him what Fom had betrayed, turned her attention again to mining matters. She knew well what Fom's eyes begged, but hid her head in the Silver King, whence a subterranean giggle came, revealing her enjoyment of the situation.
Fom's stormy eyes filled and the Silver King and the Diamond Heart jigged back and forth till the tears splashed down and cleared her vision.
”Ho--cry-baby!” called Peter Cody. Peter was one of those gallant gentlemen who are never afraid of a playmate when some one else has demonstrated that he can be downed.